


the end is nigh

by surely_silly



Series: Spooktacular [2]
Category: Danny Phantom, Supernatural
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s05e04 The End, Gen, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-11 16:56:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 4,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/800989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surely_silly/pseuds/surely_silly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel has eternity, and nothing to lose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah this is based off of a thing I saw on tumblr not too long ago and of which i can't seem to find again yet. I'll link it when I find it but I hope you all like this.
> 
> Gonna be drabble-like I guess.

He stumbles from the building, bleeding and worn; he's not sure he has ever been so tired. Cradling his arm closer to his chest, he pushes forward, one foot in front of the other, and stomps down on the well of emotion that thickens his throat and beats in his chest.

Castiel regrets. Oh, how does he  _regret._

He has given everything for this damned planet; he has seen it razed and regrown so many times , and the one _fucking_  time he decides that he'll care _,_  sacrifice himself for the humans, what does he get? A knife to the back. Stabbed in the back as the  _humans_ say. It's almost a physical pain. His wings are gone and the phantom flutters will never go away.

Maybe it's been a folly on his part. A more  _profound_ bond. What. A. Joke. Hysterical laughter bites at the back of his throat as he tips onto the side of the building, legs all but numb. Had he always been something so... expendable to Dean? He wants to say no, but who was he  _fucking kidding_? His brothers and sisters have abandoned him, his  _Father_ long since, and the world is no longer a creation but a demonstration.

_God no longer cares._

"Ah—"

It hits harder than he thought it would, and he loses his breath. It's all that he can do to keep himself upright as his stomach flips. He inhales deeply. The back clearing is empty, not that he had expected there to be anyone else. At least, that's what he thinks at first glance.

He finds it occupied with the dead when he trips.

Castiel growls as he pushes himself up, and his stomach rolls. He's sick across the scraggly grass, and his last bit of willpower leaves him. He crashes heavily onto his left arm, and lays there, gasping. It takes what seems an eternity before he manages to roll over, putting himself under some low-lying foliage. The low hanging leaves of the bush tickle his ears.

Dean's milky green eyes stare back at him.


	2. Chapter 2

_Were they getting too smart for you, Father?_

_Too independent?_

_They no longer needed us or You._

"Castiel."

Castiel starts, tensing, before forcing his body to relax. Turning his head, he squints up at the darkened figure of his brother. The white burns at his eyes, and he clenches his eyes shut. They burn. This is it. He'll die. Go to heaven maybe. Or Hell, if it's even still boiling beneath his feet.

"Come to kill me, Brother?" he rasps, opening an eye to a slit. What he wouldn't do for a joint right now. Maybe Luci was all up for last requests.

His face tightens, and something flashes through his eyes. It's gone before Castiel can even begin to wonder. "Oh, no, what kind of brother would I be if I did that? No, I've come to insure that you live,  _Castiel._ "

Maybe it's the years without having to deal with his brothers and sisters, or demons or any other monster; maybe it's the years gone by without his Grace that lets him fall prey to the sharp jab to the space right between his eyes. Pain rushes from the spot, and he arches off the ground as his nerves catch  _fire._

"Live long and prosperous, little brother."

 _Cain said to the Lord,"My punishment is too great to bear! Behold, You have driven me this day from the face of the ground; and from Your face I will be hidden, and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me." But the Lord said to him, "Not so; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over." Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him._  [Genesis 4:13-15]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all that this story has from the comic on askendcas.tumblr (if you check it out you'll see it easy peasy there's not much on that blog)


	3. Chapter 3

Castiel doesn't know how long he lays next to Dean's corpse. Weeks, days, months, minutes, hours, years, seconds. Time blurs into nothing. The skin has already burst from swelling internal gases, and he's sure the stench of rotting flesh has soaked its way down to the marrow of his bones from being so close. If it were anyone else... he'd be gone, throwing himself into hordes but.

He can't just get up and leave him or it or what the fucking  _hell whatever_.

Bugs are crawling through the eaten eye sockets, but he's transfixed; he can still see the vibrant jade green they had once been, shiny and bright. So lively, and jaded but not so much he'd  _stab someone in the back oh father please please **please**  annapleasegabrielbalthazar_ ** _p_ _lease_** —

Dean's lips quirk. "Looks like it's just you and me, Cas."

Castiel's lips twitch into a smile, and the edges of his eyes burn.

Then he blinks.

Rotten skin hangs around a skeletal mouth, teeth set into gums of black meat. A long centipede crawls from inside the corpse's mouth, and Castiel flinches. He rolls onto his back, and gasps, angry and sad and upset and devastated and  _fucking grief? Had he l—_

He grabs at his hair, and squeezes his eyes shut, pulling into himself and onto his side away from the rotting flesh. They burn and burn and burn, and he will not cry,  _he will **not cry.**  _He doesn't deserve it. He can't. He doesn't have the fucking right at all, no no nonon _ono **no** —_

But he does; the fat, salty tears leak out, and something catches in his throat as his chest constricts.

Castiel breaks down, the sobs pitiful and pathetic as he tries to choke it all back.

The world has gotten so, so small.


	4. Chapter 4

It's distressing. Fucking  _gut wrenching._

Castiel swallows hard, dirty and sore and tired. He digs his fingers tightly into the empty rifle, and shuffles down the Croat riddled street with minimal fuss. Most hardly even give him a second glance, the more...  _aware_ ones stare after him, their gazes hungry but intelligent. Some start to swing in his direction, and he'll raise the gun, but they barely get a few seconds of a look at him before they look like they're almost  _forced_ away from him.

He wants... to die so fucking bad— _nothing works, he's tried and tried; he'd thrown himself into a river when he went back and found the base camp a ghost town, and woke somewhere else; he's starved himself, but he just won't **fucking die.** Why won't I die, whywhywhyit'snotfairnotfairnot **fair.**_

" _He—ell.. o?_ "

The high-strung human startles badly, startling a few of the wandering Croatoans, and nearly trips on the curb as he stumbles backwards. Castiel whips his head around, heart pounding, racing  _who is that people are still alive wherewhere **where?**_

" _Tes—ting... 1... 3.._ "

It takes much longer than he wishes to admit, but he finally notices the voice coming from his back pocket. His radio hasn't worked for days now, after finding the base camp... so why would it work now? Here? Wherever here is. Stuffing the rifle under his arm, he pulls the small device from his pocket and almost smacks it against his ear in his haste.

" _Hell—o? Any survivors... there? Channel...-five is... communications. Anyone hearing... Amity Park... limit... pick-up..._   _waiting... three hours..._ "

He... He wants to believe in this so bad it  _hurts._

 _What if it's just Lucifer toying with you,_ niggles a little voice, and Castiel flinches. What if it  _is_ just Lucifer playing with him, and he'd be walking right into it? Anger ripples into existence, flooding his chest with a heat so hot it  _burns_  and he rears his arm back, the radio clenched tightly in his fingers.

It's so fragile. Easily. Easily, it would crack against the cement. So, so easily. It would splinter and crack and go everywhere, the voice would go away and never come back _—_

" _... Safe..._ "

And then the rage is gone, slipping away like mist between his fingers, and Castiel is just tired.


	5. Chapter 5

The first flakes stun him.

It's mid-june, and a snow flurry is slipping by. Craning his neck, he stares up at the sky and squints at the small patch of dark clouds. The tiny pinpricks of cold settle lazily on his face, and he blinks before looking down at himself. He's completely underdressed but he can't be that far north... can he? A snarl curls onto his face at the thought, the boiling and spontaneous anger bubbling under his skin.

He trudges on. The heat dissipates within a few hours, and by then the temperature has dropped so much he can see each of his breaths. Castiel figures he won't make it to Amity Park—Wisconsin. He's in  _fucking Wisconsin_ —for the supposed pick up in two days as the snowflakes thicken in intensity as he huddles under an overpass in a car in mostly okay shape. It does almost next to nothing to keep the cold's curling fingers out but he won't die anyway.

The snow blankets the ground thinly throughout the night, and it's gone by mid-morning, but that doesn't stop him from making a snow angel in the frigid white before he moves on.

Castiel wonders if he's going insane all over again.


	6. Chapter 6

A thick expanse of glittering white stretches as far as the eye can see, and Castiel shades his eyes. He's never been one for Earth's geography but he's almost ready to throw in the towel at this point.

Slowly and steadily the snow reaches new heights up the legs of his tattered pants, going from his ankles to mid-shins, and what the actual fuck? He's freezing, and only about a mile out from the city's border if the corrected sign from an hour past had been telling the truth, the crossed out  _Amity Park: 35 _Miles__ rewritten haphazardly in bright green spray paint with  _1.5 Miles_.

Less walking for him but the fucking snow  _how?_

There's a noise from off the side of the shoulder, and Castiel whips around, fingers clenching at the memory of having discarded his empty rifle. A white head and two long ears peek out from behind a bare tree's trunk. It's just a snow hare. Its beady black eyes stare after him for naught but a moment before disappearing.

He releases a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, the burn for oxygen washing over him in a stinging wave, and continues on.


	7. Chapter 7

Castiel almost wants to cry. People, humans, are milling about on the other side of the open field of white; they're carrying rifles and are shuffling amongst each other, clearly waiting. Waiting for someone, anyone, like him.

He made it. He  _fucking made it_. Hysteria bubbles up, and he retreats back into the bare tree line where he doubles over and gasps, nearly tripping over an exposed root. A grin stretches across his face, and tears burn at the edges of his eyes because  _holy shit_  . People. He found people. He  _fucking_ found people! Straightening, he whips back around and darts out from the tangle of trees.

He's barely three feet when he sees the last of them get into their vehicle.

Terror seizes him, but he doesn't stop. He falls twice, scrambling up from the snow with waning strength each time, and screams his frustration because  _he's come so fucking far no nonononopleasei'mright **here**_ **.**

He falls a third time, landing face first into the snow with an angry scream, just as there's a shout. Struggling up from the snow, arms quivering at the strain, Castiel looks up and spots the one person manning the torrent atop the last vehicle turned in his direction.

_They saw hi—!_

A bullet buries itself into the snow just shy of his left hand.


	8. Chapter 8

They're all dressed in parkas and snow boots; their faces obscured by the faux-fur lining the hoods. Castiel swallows, beyond glad he's so fucking tired he's trembling, and keeps his arms raised high as they shuffle closer. A black parka leads the pack, stomping carefully and determinedly across the snow; whoever it is, they're not playing games, if the rifle still trained in his direction meant anything.

"Paulina, Starr, check the line to see if he's alone," barks the black parka, and two grey ones break off into a wide arch at the command.

Castiel can see them out of the corner of his eye slip into the trees. Good. It meant they were competent. He can appreciate competent; competent meant having survived a long time.

 _You might change that,_ whispers a voice,  _you might get them all killed, being here._

Somewhere along the trek to Amity's border, Castiel found he didn't care. He deserves a bit of selfishness, right? A little. Just a bit. Not much. A tiny bit. He deserves that much, doesn't he?

 _Their funeral,_ the voice giggles.


	9. Chapter 9

He's given a beige parka, and a strange look. "How are you not black and blue, man?" asks a dark brown parka, curious green eyes bright within the itchy fur. "Like, seriously, how do you not already have frost bite or something?"

"How do you know I don't?" Castiel snips back before he really thinks about it. The man, he's assuming, steps back a few steps, cowed, and Castiel frowns. When the man mutters something about doing bloodwork and psych evaluations, and wanders away, the former angel rubs his cheek before pulling the hood to the parka up.

"That was rude..." snaps a voice before trailing off with a lack of introductions. Castiel turns around; it's the black parka. "What's your name anyway?"

Castiel eyes the rifle in their hands. "Cas."

The hood comes down, and purple eyes roll under a fringe of black. "Alright  _Cas,_ you're on three week probation, and then the fourth week we'll talk more about finding you a place in the spookiest place in America."

"Spookiest place in America?" he asks because, really, had she seen the state of the entire world lately, like the past two years lately. And, because he can, he leers at her with a snort. She looks healthy, a bit pale, but not starving skinny.

She smirks. "Yeah."

And, maybe that is all there is to it.


	10. Chapter 10

It's an awkward ride; the heat is on the lowest setting, and for some reason Castiel gets seated between the beige parka named Kwan and one of the grey parkas from earlier. He'd seen the other vehicle with barely anyone in it, but the black parka had seen him look, and had merely shot him a devious grin before pulling her hood back up and barking for everyone to head out.

A tiny spark of irritation ignites in his chest, but it is smothered out as an hour passes, and the sun loses its towering position in the sky.

"How far are we from the Canadian border?" he blurts out, unable to crush the sudden and giddy feeling of being around people bubbling up in his throat. He almost doesn't feel all there; everything is surreal and for all he has thrown himself into human life some things still elude him.

Kwan shifts on his left. "Um, did you not take geography seriously in school or something?"

Castiel cannot help the scowl that slips onto his face. He wants to tell him he didn't go to school; that distance used to have never been a problem of his once upon a time, but he doesn't and just hunches back in the seat, tense and... miserable.

"... We're at minimum eight-hundred miles away," comes the reluctant answer.

That doesn't explain the snow, but he lets another half hour pass. Kwan starts to shift in his seat, and Castiel takes it as a tell that they would be arriving soon.

"What's with all the snow?"

This time, the grey parka answers. "Croatoans can't survive all that well in the cold," she says, like it explains everything.

In a way it explains half of everything.


	11. Chapter 11

There's so many... people.

They're all bundled up, in varying types of winter gear but they bustle about to and fro. Like it's a normal little town in a normal little world. Castiel steps from the vehicle, pushing his hood back, and wanders a few paces away, watching. Incomprehensible chatter fills the air, and he almost wants to hate it.

_Maybe if we'd known about this place before, we never would have went after Lu _—__

The thought is cut off as there's a squeal, and whoop, and then he's sideways in the snow, the frigid white packed hard against his wind chapped face. Stinging pain registers slowly, and he sits up just as slow. He blinks, just a bit dazed and looks around for what hit him.

"Box Lunch!  _I've got you, you mischievous little thing!_ " barks a voice, the English ragged, and the Esperanto oily smooth.  _  
_

Castiel freezes.

The werewolf is huge, its fangs long and ivory white. Its claws are gripping a small blue child, who shrieks and giggles and kicks small feet as the creature laughs.

For some reason he can't move, eyes glued to the two naught but scant inches away. Despite the clear and undeniable fact the two are monsters, of some sort they must be, the public display of affection has turned his insides a dead cold, freezer burnt, and he can't breath.

It's not fair. It's  _not **fair.**_

" _Hey_

 

 

_are_

_you_

 

 

_o...kay?"_


	12. Chapter 12

Dean stands before him, eyes rotten sockets of flesh. Yellowed teeth, set in gums of black and peeling meat, sneer at him. Damning red hot rage and furious anger thickens the air, and suddenly Risa is there. Chuck. Kevin. Gabriel. Anna. They loom forward, towering, throwing him into shadow. Flies buzz about the air, and maggots spill from a hole in Chuck's chest; something moves from beside Kevin's pants leg, stretching from his stomach and.

bile burns at the top of Castiel's throat.

 

_thIS_

_is **YoUR**_

_FAUlt._

It's screamed right in his head, their voices a canopy of rising volume and endless screams, howls of hunger and rage  _nonoi'msorryididmybesti'msorrysorry_ _ **sorry.**_

"Forgive me," he screams back, begs, pleads," Please, I'm sorry, I tried, I did, I sacrificed _so much for this **goddamn fucking place."**_

Fire ignites under his skin and Castiel ducks down, curling into himself as fleeting claws and teeth pull him to pieces. Bites his lip and tongue until blood coats his mouth, drops slipping to the ground, and running the world white with the heat of hellfire.

 

_forgive me_

_father_

_for i have sinned_


	13. Chapter 13

He wakes to a flickering light, the bulb blinking along with unsteady energy. The ceiling has a fat water stain in the far corner, and Castiel finds that he's disappointed yet again.

Despair washes over him, and he wants to scream; he wants to rage and cry and throw himself from the highest structure; he wants to  _unfurl his wings and fly away, why whywhywhyhashisFatherforsakenhimso_ —

His body seizes, and he arches up off the bed at the sudden pain. He chokes, and stomach acid burns at the back of his throat. Castiel leans over the edge of the bed and vomits up a chunky clear liquid onto the floor. He wants to die. How hard can that be.  _Humans_ die at the drop of a hat, from disease, a tumble down a flight of steps, a fist to the temple. Why must it elude him, something as  _fucking_  simple.  _Fuck you, Lucifer._

Springs in the cot squeak as he flops back onto them. Inhaling deeply, he screws his eyes shut tightly, and grips onto the scratchy sheets underneath him. He digs his nails as hard as he can into the cloth, his lips curling apart as he grits his teeth. A pulsating red bleeds in behind his eyes, and he constricts his lungs, holding his breath.

The burn for oxygen what seems an eternity later has him exhaling loudly.

"You... Wow, that was interesting."

Castiel stiffens in the bed. Opening his eyes to thin slits and looking sideways, he spots a man laying on his side in a cot of his own a few feet away. Rimless glasses are perched on his dark-skinned face, and his pale blue eyes look thoughtful. However, his skin seems sickly dull and his eyes lackluster in the fluorescent lights, and Castiel briefly entertains the idea that a sickness is rearing its ugly head in the frozen community.

Forcing himself to relax, he sags into the bed. "I am the epitome of interesting," he snarks back without much heat.

The man snorts. "Right. So, you must be the single new guy they picked up yesterday?"

Yesterday. He'd been asleep so long? Stretching an arm up, he winces at the ache accompanying the movement. Sore. He definitely had been laying down for a while. With a grumbled, "What of it?" Castiel rolls over in the cot, turning his back to the man, and biting his lip to stave of the resulting full body ripple of pain.

"Nothing, just wanted to see what you were like is all, y'know," the man continues, regardless of Castiel's attempt at ending the conversation," Dude gets bored in a medbay with no other sickies."

He hunches in on himself at the last word, squeezing his eyes shut. He's not sick. He's fine. Perfectly sane. No talking to bees or anything. Castiel groans deeps in his chest, and tightens his hold on the thin pillow. He just won't die. That's all.

"... Anyway, the name's Tucker, you?"

Shut up. Just shut up, why won't he shut up.

A finger digs into his shoulder, and Castiel stiffens. "Hey, you oka—"

"Shut the  _fuck up_ ," he snarls, cutting the man off, and all but scrambling up from his bed. He swallows, and the room seems to shoot up in temperature, the air dry. Sucking down a ragged breath, Castiel tries to steady his shaking hands, shaking body. Reality is too much. So crystal clear and clean cut, he needs something. Need. Need.  _Fuck._

He shouldn't have come. Should have just laid down in the snow and let it eat him whole, should have bitten his tongue in half and bled out out out.

A hand reaches forward, and Castiel feels the steam boil over. The anger rises in a maw of glistening red teeth, and sinks down in a wave of translucent white and.

Bewildered blue eyes are staring down at him in concern when he comes to. The dark skinned man is framed against the same ceiling from before, and the powerless angel figures himself on the floor with his own sick creeping into the back of his clothes. Which is fucking great. Fucking nasty and gross. A shiver ripples over him, and Castiel groans, brushing his throbbing hands over his face.

The young man above him cracks a small grin that doesn't exactly reach his eyes, and highlights a split lip that Castiel's sure hadn't been there before. "You've got a mean right, dude," he says, and it's just a statement but  _what._

The skin of his knuckles tightens with pain as he curls his right hand, and slowly turns it over. The joints are a gross splotch of split skin and bruising, and Castiel blinks as his hand trembles.

What is wrong with me, he thinks harshly, dark threads of self loathing welling up. He remembers the anger. The man wouldn't shut up up but he'd been so angry and why, anger is so over the top but he'd just been so angry.

"I'm sorry," he croaks, and means it.  _I'm sorry for everything._

The man blinks, rubbing sheepishly at his neck. "Oh, well, it's my fault really, I should've just left you alone."

Yes, Castiel thinks numbly, you should have.


	14. Chapter 14

Despite it all, the black parka turns to the other man first.

"Tucker, what did you do?" she demands, eyes narrowed to slits.

Castiel glances at him out of the corner of his eyes, waiting. The shoe can drop now. He's done fucked up his last chance. Because. This will be his last chance. His very last. He clenches his bruised and throbbing hand, and promises all of them that this is his very last.

Tucker rubs the back of his neck, and Castiel looks away when he darts pale eyes in his direction. "I kinda, y'know, didn't take no for an answer and got what I had comin', heh heh," he says, instead of all the other things he can have said." It's my fault, I pushed him about something and well, you see my face, right Sam?"

The former angel nearly gapes at him, biting his bottom lip to stave off the sudden flux of surprise.

Purple eyes turn to him. "Oh, really, is that how it was?" she asks, staring Castiel in the eyes, daring him to lie.

But. It's true enough. 

He nods his head.


	15. Chapter 15

A tray settles down next to his.

"Wow, not even a week and you're already getting into trouble, huh?" remarks Kwan, green eyes still as curious as when Castiel first met him, and sidles up to him in the nearly deserted cafeteria as he sits. "Heard you punched Tucker out. Did you really give him a black eye?"

Castiel scrunches his face up, inwardly bemused at how fast gossip can spread. How fast it mutates. "No, I just split his lip. Apparently I've a mean right hook," he says, adding the last words as almost an afterthought. He honestly remembers none of it. "He got me to the floor."

Kwan blinks. "Oh. Wow, cool, I guess?" he says, before shoving a spoon full of jello into his mouth. "So, hey, tell me about your settlement?"

Rotten gums, and eaten eyes flicker in Castiel's mind, and he presses the heels of his hands into his eyes after a moment, forgoing the mush of food dropping back to his tray with his spoon.  _Ah, ah._  "I don't want to talk about it right now," he says instead of the mounting scream ringing in his ears. The back of his eyes hurt, and Castiel drops his hands uselessly back to the table.

Something wiggles in the porridge, and he shoves the tray back, standing. Kwan startles, but Castiel leaves him without a word.

A soft  _sorry_  echoes behind him.


	16. Chapter 16

"Sam Mason," says a voice, and Castiel only hunches in on himself more.

The black parka settles down next to him on the roofs edge, knees drawn to her chest, mirroring him in form. "That's my name if you haven't already heard it from someone," she says. And, the next moment clearly asks for his own.

Castiel can feel her eyes on him, but he keeps his trained on the white ground below. It won't kill him. Rather, the fall and abrupt stop won't kill him even if he tries. "Castiel," he replies, closing his eyes. He'll call her Mason. Her first name too painful, so painful.

"Interesting name. No last name, though?"

It doesn't feel right to even think about taking Jimmy's name. "No."

"Huh."

A stiff, cold breeze washes over them, and Castiel shivers even under the thick coat he'd been given.

**Author's Note:**

> so yeah this is kinda discontinued now. at least this version is, i have a rewrite in mind for this, but in a completely different POv and stuff so, the idea isn't dead, just this error riddle fic is.


End file.
